The present invention relates to a double jersey fabric, a method for producing a double jersey fabric, a circular knitting machine for knitting a double jersey knitted fabric, and the use of a circular knitting machine for producing a double jersey fabric. More particularly, the present invention relates to efficient use of material and improved productivity in the context of double jersey knitted fabrics by making use of yarn selection.
A double jersey knitted fabric (also referred to as double jersey knitwear) is a classic knitted fabric which is currently knitted on circular knitting machines. A double jersey circular knitting machine is generally provided with a cylinder and a dial, with the dial being positioned just above the cylinder. Generally, both the cylinder and the dial are each provided with needles. Usually, the needles of the cylinder are intended for knitting the “aesthetic” front side of the fabric and the needles of the dial are intended for knitting the “technical” rear side of the fabric. Filler or lay-in threads are often inserted between the front side and the rear side of the knitwear in order to add volume to the fabric. This is particularly useful when the double jersey knitwear is being used as mattress tick.
Often, a large variety of yarns is used in prior-art double jersey knitted fabrics. These yarns may be, for example, colourful, aesthetic yarns, but may also be mechanical yarns which are used for their specific mechanical properties, for example their elasticity, antistatic capacity and moisture-wicking capacity. In order to produce colour variations and variations in mechanical properties in various areas of a double jersey knitted fabric, not all yarns are knitted everywhere on the front side or the rear side of the double jersey knitted fabric. In those regions where a certain yarn is not knitted on the “aesthetic” front side of the fabric, the yarn is either knitted unnecessarily on the rear side of the fabric or the yarn floats and is inserted between the front and rear sides of the knitted fabric, optionally together with lay-in yarns.
However, inserting such yarns between the front side and rear side has the drawback that such floating yarns are difficult to control, in particular when they float across large distances. In order to overcome this challenge, these yarns may, as mentioned above, be anchored in a “technical” pattern on the non-visible, technical rear side of the double jersey knitted fabric. This technique is described in EP1975294. However, if the yarns are expensive and if the expensive yarn is only knitted in a small pattern on the front side, a large part of the yarn is wasted since only a small fraction of the yarn is visible. The present invention provides a cost-saving solution for this challenge without loss of quality.
Although the general technology (called plating) of inserting a pattern yarn before a certain pattern, and cutting said yarn after the pattern is completed is known for single Jersey fabrics such as socks, to our knowledge said technology has not been used to produce double Jersey fabrics. Although yarn selectors such as stripers are well known in the circular knitting field, they have to our knowledge never been used on double jacquard circular knitting machines, to select and deselect yarns to be knitted in a pattern on a double Jersey fabric.